➡ Quail Hatch Along🥚

[muddy75]

@007Sean .......HELP Please!!! I hadn’t planned on the partridge chicks (they just jumped in the box @ rural king)
I had them housed in brooder with pheasants temporarily but I’ve already lost 3 and 4th is gone despite my efforts. I just got them separated into my indoor brooder on heat pad with brinsea plate at highest height setting. they have had gamebird feed and nutridrench water available since i picked them up. i believe the deaths were due to pileups...not sure what else i could be doing wrong!!??? according to google partridges supposed to be one of the easiest chicks to brood but to me seem as frail and difficult as quailies!!

i’m really worried about the 38 little ones left at rural king now too!! if I’m having this much trouble with them.......All remaining 8 are warm and cozy now....not piled up but not active at all!

 

[BReeder!]

I found these cup waterers doodads on amazon. Is the increased capacity compared to the smaller ones at all beneficial? If I got the bigger ones I'd have 2 5g with 2 cups each. With the smaller cups I'd probably do 5-6 on each bucket.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D6VFCWM/?tag=backy-20

I look at it as the larger cups are deeper. This could be a problem for young quail if the cup gets low abs they struggle to reach the water.

 

[muddy75]

Hey muddy, they will pile up, more so than other gamebird chicks. To prevent that from happening, use cardboard and make a wall to round off the corners of the brooder.
I use to brood mine in an old 100 gallon metal livestock tank, no corners.
They will also do better with a white light, instead of a red light. Their weird in that they can't see as well in a red light and panick and tend to all run to the corners to hide . Try using a white light and rounding off any corners and you should have a successful brood.

that makes sense.....i had them under white light at first....only switched to red because of pheasant bullies (no blood drawn yet, but one keeps pecking at everyone’s legs and wings!) they are the sweetest little things!! the pheasants on the other hand are extremely rowdy!! i haven’t looked it up but i’m guessing the troublemakers with darker stripes to be boys!

 

[007Sean]

that makes sense.....i had them under white light at first....only switched to red because of pheasant bullies (no blood drawn yet, but one keeps pecking at everyone’s legs and wings!) they are the sweetest little things!! the pheasants on the other hand are extremely rowdy!! i haven’t looked it up but i’m guessing the troublemakers with darker stripes to be boys!

I'm assuming you have chucker partridges and not French Red Legged partridges?
You can't determine sex until they mature and it isn't easy.
Since males and females sport the same feather color and distribution, you must look at more subtle differences to identify the gender. Visual inspection works primarily on adult birds, not chicks and juveniles.
Adult male chukar partridges are slightly larger than females, but their heads are more blocky. The female's head is smaller and more refined. Observing the legs will often not be reliable due to the fact that females often have spurs on the metatarsal, too!
It will look like a small, rounded bump.
Males also tend to be larger, body wise but that's not a 'for sure' identifying marker.

You can also vent sex them like you would quail. Male chukar partridges should have a somewhat pointed protuberance less than a inch long in the center of the cloacal fold, which females do not have. The older the bird, the more prominent the protuberance.
As I said not easy to identify especially if their bat guano crazy. Good luck with your birds.

 

[muddy75]

i’ve procrastinated on lockdown this time and just realized i ran out of my stockpile of grippy liner!! luckily it’s errand day so i will have to make an extra stop at DG! the weather forecast for the weekend has changed again!! supposed to be cloudy and cooler now with 50% chance rain on Saturday instead of every day.....
I left hubby in charge of evening chores yesterday....he said I got 1 more quail egg but he didn’t collect chicken eggs because he didn’t know which ones were the hatching ones .......still haven’t quite figured out the broody situation......i know people have taken eggs from broody hens to incubator but what about taking eggs from incubator @lockdown and putting them under broody hens?? hubby thinks I should let them hatch eggs and then remove chicks to brood inside whereas I wanted to give them chicks and remove the eggs. he doesn’t seem to think they would accept and/or protect the chicks.

 

[BullChick]

I had never seen mating until this morning. Of the ten eggs I’ve collected, and three I’ve checked, none were fertile. I guess I checked the wrong ones.
I still cannot tell all the boys from girls.

 

[muddy75]

I'm assuming you have chucker partridges and not French Red Legged partridges?
You can't determine sex until they mature and it isn't easy.
Since males and females sport the same feather color and distribution, you must look at more subtle differences to identify the gender. Visual inspection works primarily on adult birds, not chicks and juveniles.
Adult male chukar partridges are slightly larger than females, but their heads are more blocky. The female's head is smaller and more refined. Observing the legs will often not be reliable due to the fact that females often have spurs on the metatarsal, too!
It will look like a small, rounded bump.
Males also tend to be larger, body wise but that's not a 'for sure' identifying marker.

You can also sex them like you would quail. Male chukar partridges should have a somewhat pointed protuberance less than a inch long in the center of the cloacal fold, which females do not have. The older the bird, the more prominent the protuberance.
As I said not easy to identify especially if their bat guano crazy. Good luck with your birds.

yes i’m assuming they are chukar. but as far as the rowdy bully boys, I was referring to the pheasants which i’m 99% sure are ringneck. (sorry my post was a little all over the place) so starting at the beginning here.....”chicken dude” @ rural king knows me well and as I was inquiring about possible babies for my broodies he tells me they are getting pheasants in during May. of course, knowing what I know about permits, etc, I freaked out!! they had ordered 35 and 20 were spoken for already. I told hubby about situation and we made the decision to “rescue” the other 15 as ppl in this area including RK doesn’t know difference between pheasant or chicken etc and no paper trail/reporting system on purchases. price on the pheasants was also less than list price from hatchery!! I didn’t know about the partridge order until I arrived to pick up the pheasants. (which were also only .99 markup over hatchery list price!) I couldn’t “rescue” all 50 partridges they had ordered so I only took 12. (I’m truly hoping they don’t repeat the situation and now wishing I had been able to rescue all 50 of the little guys!!). I do have the ability to separate the aviary if needed and freeing up room in chicken area for troublemakers to be separated until butcher size. but hubby is now hoping that we will get a good mannered small group of hens:1 male from pheasants to keep......Yes I am going with a bit of “plausible deniability” in this situation

 

[007Sean]

yes i’m assuming they are chukar. but as far as the rowdy bully boys, I was referring to the pheasants which i’m 99% sure are ringneck. (sorry my post was a little all over the place) so starting at the beginning here.....”chicken dude” @ rural king knows me well and as I was inquiring about possible babies for my broodies he tells me they are getting pheasants in during May. of course, knowing what I know about permits, etc, I freaked out!! they had ordered 35 and 20 were spoken for already. I told hubby about situation and we made the decision to “rescue” the other 15 as ppl in this area including RK doesn’t know difference between pheasant or chicken etc and no paper trail/reporting system on purchases. price on the pheasants was also less than list price from hatchery!! I didn’t know about the partridge order until I arrived to pick up the pheasants. (which were also only .99 markup over hatchery list price!) I couldn’t “rescue” all 50 partridges they had ordered so I only took 12. (I’m truly hoping they don’t repeat the situation and now wishing I had been able to rescue all 50 of the little guys!!). I do have the ability to separate the aviary if needed and freeing up room in chicken area for troublemakers to be separated until butcher size. but hubby is now hoping that we will get a good mannered small group of hens:1 male from pheasants to keep......Yes I am going with a bit of “plausible deniability” in this situation

Again, you can't go by looks, color or markings on ring necked chicks or juveniles, until they get some age on them...8 to 12 weeks, by then the males should be showing their wattles.

 

[el dorado quail]

I look at it as the larger cups are deeper. This could be a problem for young quail if the cup gets low abs they struggle to reach the water.

True. Maybe i could do 1 bucket with the little ones and one with the big as an experiment hmm

 

[Kiki]

yes i’m assuming they are chukar. but as far as the rowdy bully boys, I was referring to the pheasants which i’m 99% sure are ringneck. (sorry my post was a little all over the place) so starting at the beginning here.....”chicken dude” @ rural king knows me well and as I was inquiring about possible babies for my broodies he tells me they are getting pheasants in during May. of course, knowing what I know about permits, etc, I freaked out!! they had ordered 35 and 20 were spoken for already. I told hubby about situation and we made the decision to “rescue” the other 15 as ppl in this area including RK doesn’t know difference between pheasant or chicken etc and no paper trail/reporting system on purchases. price on the pheasants was also less than list price from hatchery!! I didn’t know about the partridge order until I arrived to pick up the pheasants. (which were also only .99 markup over hatchery list price!) I couldn’t “rescue” all 50 partridges they had ordered so I only took 12. (I’m truly hoping they don’t repeat the situation and now wishing I had been able to rescue all 50 of the little guys!!). I do have the ability to separate the aviary if needed and freeing up room in chicken area for troublemakers to be separated until butcher size. but hubby is now hoping that we will get a good mannered small group of hens:1 male from pheasants to keep......Yes I am going with a bit of “plausible deniability” in this situation

We need pictures of all these new babies you got.